High college photographers seize Santa Cruz protests – Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — In the times main as much as nationwide walkouts in protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Jan. 30, Harbor High School senior Veronica Gonzalez weighed whether or not to affix in. She had by no means been to a protest earlier than, and didn’t know what to anticipate. Eventually, she made the choice to go together with a few of her mates, digicam in hand. As a lifelong photographer, taking images on the occasion — which drew over a thousand highschool college students — would make her really feel extra assured, like she was making a distinction.

“It always felt natural to have a camera on me,” Gonzalez mentioned. “With everything in life that’s new, I bring a camera, and I can process it easier that way.”

Gonzalez wasn’t the one highschool scholar who felt that method. Several of her friends — together with fellow Harbor High seniors Reese Weiss and Tala Socco, and Pacific Collegiate School junior Atticus Flores — have taken the prospect to observe their road pictures and photojournalism abilities throughout protests. Many of them introduced their cameras to doc the day after they walked out of faculty Jan. 30.

Harbor High movie and pictures instructor Larkin Wilson wasn’t shocked. Since she started educating pictures on the college round 2009, her college students have been drawn to road pictures. She thinks it offers them a technique to inform tales and seize occasions from their very own views. Wilson mentioned she feels happy with her present crop of scholars for carrying on that custom of analyzing the world and discovering their voice by pictures.

“This is a difficult time in our society,” Wilson mentioned. “We need ways to process it.”

While Jan. 30 was Gonzalez’s first protest, Weiss and Socco had politically energetic childhoods and grew up attending such occasions. Still, Weiss mentioned, she didn’t know what she would see when she arrived on the Town Clock that Friday morning. The large swarm of scholars, all engaged and passionate, made her really feel happy with her friends for talking out. Weiss was glad she introduced her digicam. She felt that the images she captured mirrored the satisfaction and pleasure she felt watching the protest.

“Especially for kids our age, it can feel really hard right now,” Weiss mentioned. “It feels hopeless, almost, with such big things happening. … I was so excited and so proud that people were speaking out against everything that was going on.”

For Flores, the walkout was his first alternative to observe photojournalism. He had been watching protests towards the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the information and on social media for months, and was bored with feeling like an observer. He wished to make use of his abilities in pictures to make a distinction. So, on Jan. 30, he took his digicam and a few mates to the Santa Cruz County Governmental Center, the place the group of youngsters had gathered with their indicators. For Flores, capturing images on the protest was a technique to present his perspective on present occasions.

“I think it’s hard for people to understand the full depth of a problem if they’re seeing it on the news,” Flores mentioned. “When people see something visually, it forces them to sort of think about it and it makes them have a deeper understanding of what’s happening.”

Photography can be a strong software to doc historical past, Socco and Gonzalez mentioned. Visual media has affect over what’s taking place now and folks’s understanding of it, but it surely additionally impacts how we view historic occasions. Talking about protests and political actions as they’re taking place ensures that they gained’t be forgotten about sooner or later, Socco mentioned.

“It’s significant to document these times because if we don’t record and film and post these things, they will be erased, as we’ve seen historically,” Socco mentioned.

Many of the scholars really feel as if they’re contradicting stereotypes about their era by capturing protests by their artwork. Growing up in an age dominated by the web and social media, making artwork as an alternative of scrolling may give youngsters a way of company, Gonzalez mentioned. Weiss agreed, including that creating artwork defies the concept that her era isn’t severe. And, whereas lots of the photographers’ friends really feel afraid to talk out, Socco mentioned, taking images is a technique to fight the stigma round younger folks’s participation in politics.

Flores sees his pictures as a method so as to add a brand new perspective to the dialog. He feels that having as many viewpoints as attainable represented within the historic file offers us a greater understanding of great occasions.

All of the scholars see themselves persevering with to take images for a very long time, whether or not as a profession or a lifelong interest. As a lot of them start fascinated by faculty, some are contemplating a significant or double main in pictures or movie. That contains Gonzalez, who continues to be determining precisely what she desires to do as a profession, however is aware of that it’s going to focus on artwork.

“All I’ve ever known is art,” Gonzalez mentioned. “It’s helped me process a lot. It’s helped me understand people. Everything I love and everything I hate is art. It’s all I know.”